Fostering can be a positive experience for your children, teaching them important life skills like empathy and compassion.
The decision to become a foster carer involves the whole family. Each member of the household will be involved in both the decision to foster and the assessment process, and we will provide lots of support to the children of our carers.
Children of foster carers and Supported Lodgings carers play a vital role. They have to share their parents, their toys and their friends, and they sometimes have to cope with difficult and challenging behaviour. Despite these difficulties many say that being part of a foster family has had a positive impact on them, and helped them to understand others better.
Every October we celebrate Children of Foster Carers Month, a UK-wide campaign to celebrate the significant contribution of children of foster carers to successful foster care. Additionally, our Fostering Support Officers organise regular day trips and activities throughout the year, which are a great opportunity for the children of our carers to form friendships and share experiences.
"I really like Supported Lodgings because it’s like welcoming a new family member into your home. You don’t have to provide as much help as you do with normal foster caring, but also you spend more time with the young people than you do with ordinary lodgers.
It’s been amazing meeting people, whether that’s the young person or their friends. I also think I’ve learnt a lot from my Mum through Supported Lodgings, like things about foster caring and also about other people.”
"Fostering has definitely made us lot closer and it’s definitely made us a lot closer as a family. We talk to each other a lot more now.
It’s taught us to understand and respect others. It’s made us who we are today. We’ve had help from everyone around us; if we need to talk, there’s always someone there - we’re never left in the dark.
I (Louis) now work in a primary school. It’s my first job. I’ve taken my love of fostering and taken it out into the wider world, looking after 30 kids at an after-school club! It’s definitely made me who I am, and I do what I love and enjoy.
Fostering makes you a better person and brings your family together. Nothing is going to be severely affected, it’s still going to be your family - just with extra people."
"We’ve been fostering with our family for four and a half years now. We started fostering when we were five and nine years old. We foster younger children, mainly babies and toddlers and we really enjoy looking after the children that come into our home.
We remember our first foster child when he came to stay. He was only 18 months old and he was so very cute. He looked very scared when he first came to join us, but we got lots of our toys out and helped him to play with them and soon he started playing with the cars and he settled in. We like to share our toys with the children although not all of them are age-appropriate to some of the little children and we have to keep them up high if they have small parts in them like the marble run! We enjoy having the children join us for lots of activities and we enjoy watching them grow. Some children have learnt to talk and learnt to walk and learn lots of new things whilst they have stayed with us.
We also help young parents to care for their children and encourage them to eat their food and drink their bottles of milk. We like it when they learn to walk and hold onto our hands whilst they try. When we come out of school, the young children are often really excited to see us and we are often greeted by lots of smiles and arms wide for cuddles.
The hardest part about fostering is when it’s time for children to move to their forever homes. It’s always really sad and we find it quite upsetting when they leave. We always try and do something nice on the day after they have left to try and celebrate the time that they’ve been with us and help us feel less sad. We like keeping in touch with some of the children. We haven’t been able to with all the children, but when we do the children often rush up to us and give us a hug. We have lots of fun when we meet up with them and play. The children often remember our names!
We really like taking part in the fostering activities with the other foster carer‘s children. We’ve made lots of new friends and it’s really fun to meet up with them. The last trip we went onto was at the pier. We had so much fun going on all the rides with our friends and the fostering team! We have visited other places too; we’ve been rock-climbing, bowling, learnt water sports and played laser tag. On the next holiday we’re going to do pottery painting, we really enjoy the activities."
"We have the opportunity to meet and interact with a wide range of different people, of different ages, from different backgrounds, with different experiences. We love having young children in our house.
We love to play with them, share experiences with them and share our home with them. We love seeing their absolute excitement and pleasure at trying new experiences. This includes visiting places like Woods Mill, Bramber Castle and the beach, and also going to music groups, going on holiday, going swimming, running in the park and shouting "YEEEEEHAAAAAA!" as we drive through a tunnel. We love to see them try new foods for the first time, write their first letter to Father Christmas, have their own 'special blanket' and personalised Father Christmas sacks. We love to celebrate birthdays, have family parties, introduce them to our Granny and Grapps, and watch them become part of our big extended family.
We have the chance to help children thrive. We give them a sense of belonging to a happy, positive, well-functioning family. We make them feel safe and loved unconditionally. We see them being happy and feeling safe, and we know we have made a huge, positive difference to their lives.
When children leave us, it is the worst bit by far and we do miss them. We know it is the best thing for them and we feel prepared, but it is still sad. Whether they are returning to their birth family or moving onto a family to be adopted, we like to see them settled and happy. We still visit all of them and we love the fact that they remember us and that we have been part of their story."